FuoriBorgo
Each day for the last 10 days or so, I've wondered whether this was the day I should harvest all the remaining tomatoes on the vines. Our days are growing shorter, but the nights are still warm. However, fall officially begins tomorrow, and one of these evenings temperatures are liable to drop suddenly. When is the right time to harvest those last tomatoes?
This year I only grew the two kinds of tomatoes I like best (here): date tomatoes (possibly the same as the English "grape tomato"?), and beefsteak tomatoes.
I've had a very large crop of date tomatoes, which are wonderful little bite-sized morsels of intense flavor, and though the plants are now showing signs of decline, they're still healthy.
However, the beefsteak tomatoes, which I'm very fond of because they're excellent both raw and in a sauce, have recently become heavily infested by stink bugs.
These stink bugs don't seem to harm the plant itself, but they ruin the tomatoes:
Above you can see what the damage looks like: a discolored area on the surface of the tomato.
And on the inside, the flesh is dry and corky.
So, I've decided to leave the date tomatoes on the vines as long as the weather holds, whereas I chose to harvest all the healthy beefsteak tomatoes, most of which were unripe, before the stink bugs got to them.
What do you do with green tomatoes? In my part of the world, we keep them in brown paper bags together with an apple: the ethylene gas from the apple encourages ripening.
7 comments:
slice up those green tomatoes and dip in soupy cornbread mix and deep fry! I've also made green tomato pickles and green tomato mincemeat. It was marvelous.
My Mum's (and Granny's) green tomato chutney!
I also had stick bugs, they showed up at the beginning of September this year and like you I decided to pick all the tomatoes. It was getting too cold anyway. They are getting ripe so I will make sauce from some and I have a few green tomato recipes I want to make; Fried Green Tomatoes, Orange-Green Tomato Relish, and Green Tomato Jam.
-Brenda
Here in California, I line them up on a windowsill to ripen. I've heard green tomatoes are good fried in a pan in olive oil, but haven't tried it yet.
Sorry 'bout the stink bugs eating the beefsteaks.
Here in Oklahoma, fried green tomatoes are traditional. I just slice, coat each side with flour, and fry in the skillet in about 1/2" of oil. My mother used half flour and half cornmeal, but Hubs prefers it the way his mother made them, using all flour.
Last year, our weatherman warned us of frost three times before it actually happened. And each time, I went out and picked all the green tomatoes. There are only so many times you can fix fried green tomatoes before everyone begins to roll their eyes.
I made "green tomato chocolate cake", and that was good. I made "green tomato pie" and that wasn't. Then I discovered that you can make "green tomato jam" that tastes pretty close in taste to the red tomato jam that is traditional in our family. I also discovered that I could add a pint of chopped, frozen green tomatoes into the crockpot when I made vegetable beef soup or chili and no one was the wiser.
If tomatoes are large enough, they will ripen on their own, just lined up on a cookie sheet. I don't put mine in the sun to ripen.
it may be totally besides the suggestion question, but a certain, wonderful film pops to mind... as in frying them and having them at the whistle stop café?...
and in the meantime... bon appétit!
Obv. the fried green tomatoes, but I think in Little House on the Prairie they made them into a pie that tasted like apples. Worth a shot?
Post a Comment